Our flight out of Bangor on Tuesday was delayed, resulting in a missed connection and a sleepover in Cincinnati, so that instead of being met at the airport in New Orleans we had the experience of a ride in Theodora's well-decorated open air cab. I snapped this photo as the stuffed animals in her rear window were occasionally flying by our heads in the wind. After a quick meal at La Madeline, we followed through with our plan to buy cheap bicycles to be left here. For $75 each at Walmart, we got these dual-suspension bikes, got helmets at Target (we had to gawk at the escalator with the track for the shopping cart); rode them in Lafreniere Park near Colleen & David's house the next morning. Somewhere in there was the first hit of coffee and beignets at Morning Call. Spent some time on the patio with the Irish Channel buds and take out from Cafe Rani, ripping Barb's CDs the whole time. Life can be so good. Thursday was the first day of JazzFest. Patrice Fisher and Arpa playing with a Brazilian band were so good I had to buy an album. Smothered shrimp with okra, jama jama with fried plantains, spinach artichoke casserole with sweet potato pone...all the good usual stuff. Lucinda Williams finished out the day. David joined us for JazzFest on Friday and we hooked up with Terry Allan, ran into Dave Cash, Ida the Spider, and the girlfriends. Allison Brown Quartet was great; I love bluegrass based jazz, and we caught a parade with a samba drum beat and fabulous stilt walkers. On to the beach at Gulf Shores with the family. Six double beach chairs in a row, all marked Bourg. That time seems to go much too fast. After the 3 nights in the high rise condo with the sisters, Melissa and I often stay another night down the beach in the park hotel, "the bunkers", for old time's sake, where glass doors open right onto the dunes, and it's wonderfully quiet. I'm thinking a week here next year. In my next life maybe I'll come back as a pelican. Actually I've already been a pelican, but that's a Port Alien story.

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